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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Uglies, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Conformity vs. Individuality
Beauty, Science, and Influence
The Natural World, History, and Growing Up
Friendship and Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
Tally stares morosely at the sunset, which is the pink color of cat vomit. Nothing has looked beautiful to her since her best friend, Peris, turned pretty about three months ago. Tally watches the party towers light up across the river in New Pretty Town and can hear laughter. When the sky is finally dark, Tally takes off her interface ring, shoves a portable heater into her bed, and sneaks out the window. She imagines Peris sneaking along behind her, thrilled to spend the night spying on the “new pretties.” Tally fingers the scar on her right palm as she approaches the old bridge, which is so old that it holds up its own weight without the help of hoverstruts. The bridge can’t talk, but to Tally it seems wise and knowing. Tally sneaks across to New Pretty Town.
Tally’s word choice when she describes the sunset reflects her bad mood. This sets up the ongoing motif of the natural world functioning as a reflection of Tally’s emotions and thoughts throughout the novel. However, Tally doesn’t think about New Pretty Town in these negative terms—instead, this place reminds her of Peris and the good times they shared. This suggests that friendship—and her friendship with Peris in particular—is a major motivator for Tally, and that she’ll go to great lengths in order to be with her friends.
Themes
Peris has only sent Tally one note since he became pretty, and Tally figured out that he lives in the middle of New Pretty Town. Tally has the map memorized but she knows she’ll get lost if she makes a wrong turn. And, without her interface ring, she’s invisible to vehicles and could easily be hit. Tally reminds herself that she’s an ugly and therefore worth nothing in New Pretty Town, but she hopes Peris won’t see it that way. As she slips into a dark pleasure garden, she vows not to worry about what might happen if she gets caught. A pretty couple passes, momentarily filling Tally with warmth. She finally emerges in the center of town. Tally touches her high forehead, thin lips, and frizzy hair—qualities that make her a conspicuous ugly. She hopes that talking to Peris will satisfy her until she turns pretty.
The fact that Peris became “pretty” suggests that he was once an “ugly” like Tally but underwent some kind of process—likely surgery—that made him physically attractive. Further, the fact that pretties and uglies are geographically divided from each other suggests that such surgeries are commonplace in Tally and Peris’s society. On another note, Peris hasn’t been openly communicating with Tally, which suggests that Tally’s loyalty and love might be misplaced. When Tally describes herself as ugly, it makes it clear that she harbors a deep sense of self-loathing because of the way she looks. Given the way that Tally’s society divides itself up into pretties and uglies, it’s likely that this self-loathing is exactly what she’s supposed to experience.
Themes
Tally watches the traffic, touches the scar on her right palm, and steps forward. She leaps back when she hears an earsplitting sound, but it turns out to be a house-size drum machine trying to draw pretties into starting a parade. The machine spits masks out the back, so Tally waits until it moves farther down the block and then snatches one: it’s a pig, the same pink color as the sunset.
Tally’s association between herself, the pig, and the “cat vomit”-colored sunset reinforces how ugly Tally thinks she is. The pig mask may be a good disguise, but it also doesn’t make her look any “prettier.” This suggests that changing one’s appearance may be useful at times, but it doesn’t guarantee happiness.
Themes
